Lions' Heir
by ShinyKyu
Summary: Sequel to Lions' Pride. Threeshot. Iemitsu-bashing. 10 years after the "accident," the Vongola is fresh out of viable heirs, until their long and desperate search finally bears fruit... Rated T for some slightly dark themes.
1. Chapter 1

To say Iemitsu was depressed was to say that Antarctica was cold.

After all, today was the 10th anniversary of his son's (supposed) death.

10 years ago, his 4-year-old son fell off of a mountain in Africa due to a rockslide "accident" during a family vacation. Of course, evidence of third-party involvement in the rockslide was found through the destroyed remains of machinery scattered in the leftover rubble. Within a month, the identity of the Famiglia that did it was discerned, and within a year, they were found and utterly destroyed.

During that period, the Vongola also diverted some of their resources into finding any trace of the little boy, to no avail. After an additional year of fruitless investigation, they gave up and declared him dead.

After the incident, Iemitsu and his wife started to drift apart. Both were incredibly distraught, and understandably so. But to the blond man, just seeing his beloved, especially if she was sad, and the house, was unbearable. Her sadness, as well as the much emptier and quieter house, was a blaring reminder of his failure to protect his family.

Of the cheerful little brunette he could never see again.

Even worse, while he avoided seeing her, Nana desperately sought for his presence for comfort. She needed reassurance that she wouldn't lose anyone else, but how could she be relieved any if her husband was never around any more? Why was he avoiding her in her time of need? Did he blame her for what happened? It _was_ her idea to climb the mountain, after all.

The head of CEDEF either stayed in Italy or traveled the world— going anywhere but home— for work. He devoted himself to his job to avoid his wife and to keep searching for Tsuna. Staying at home would only repeatedly stab him with his failure, but he would always hold a tiny ember of hope— one that would continually diminish over the years— that they could find something, _anything_ , of his son. Even finding his remains would be better than nothing, because at least then they could give him a proper burial and funeral.

Searching for the brunette was only an excuse he'd made to himself to stay away from Nana and the house. Deep down, he'd already given up long ago.

He would still send money to his wife, of course. She was incapable of both supporting herself and keeping the house, even if she got a job. But he rarely called anymore and never came home. Within three years of the incident, the couple might as well have been divorced.

The investigation had initially stopped after two years. But Timoteo's sons were dying off one by one. Once all of Vongola's viable heirs were gone, finding Tsuna would be the only chance of continuing the Vongola Famiglia they had.

So, after the death of Massimo, the last candidate for Vongola Decimo, the search for Tsuna kickstarted once again.

Of course, hardly anyone believed that the very last heir was still alive. But they still needed to confirm his death before they could make any further, less savory actions.

Like forcing Iemitsu to have another kid.

And such was the source of the blond man's bottomless despair. On the much more likely chance that they finally found his son's remains, he would probably be forced by the rest of Vongola— not including Timoteo, because the ninth head was not that cruel— to have another child, and there was no way that was happening.

The only way the situation could end well for everyone would be if Tsuna was found _alive_ , but that would be imposs—

"Sir, we've found a strong Sky Flame signal three miles from the rockslide location!"

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 **A/N: Merry Christmas (if you celebrate)! This took a lot longer to come out than I intended. I lost motivation to write this until literally yesterday. At least I (barely) managed to keep my promise and upload before the end of the year. I hope you liked it! I'm... not entirely sure when the next part will come out? Hopefully soon, but likely not. It will most definitely come out within a year though. If more than a year passed and I hadn't uploaded the next part, I would actually kick myself for being an ass.**

 **Once again, helpful criticism is very much so appreciated! Tell me anything, as long as you can explain it, whether it's an issue with my grammar, word choice, pacing, characterization, etc! Seriously, you can tell me that you think my writing is shit and as long as you explain why, I will love you for it.**

 **Also, big thanks to LittleSkyCompass for giving me ideas and helping me get my motivation back! Go read her stories because she is freaking amazing.**

 _Edited: 1/7/2019_


	2. Chapter 2

It didn't take long for the 4-year-old to get used to living with his new family.

For the first week, Tsuna thought that his parents would find him and bring him back home, until a month passed by and still no one came for him. He didn't blame them, though— who would've thought that a child like him would survive falling off of a _mountain_ and then get saved by lions instead of getting eaten by them? He certainly wouldn't have. Heck, it took another day after it happened for him to fully realize that it wasn't all an elaborate dream.

He didn't doubt that they probably _did_ try to look for him at first, until they either gave up when no trace of him was found or they stopped believing that he could still be among the living. So, he resolved to living the rest of his days in the wild among a family of his favorite animal species.

Surprisingly, the Sky child adapted incredibly well. Mostly through trial and error and help from his Flames and Hyper Intuition.

Food had been the first issue. The brunette knew he couldn't eat raw meat and only raw meat, so he had to find a way to cook the meat for himself and to forage for edible vegetation.

He never needed to worry about getting meat, since the hunters of the group would always bring plenty of it home. He'd never participate in hunting, even when he got older. He understood that other animals needed to be killed for these lions to live, but he'd never be able to take another animal's life unless it was absolutely necessary. Seeing the mangled corpses made him feel sick at first, but he got used to it over time.

To cook the meat, he collected a little wood and dry grass to build a campfire, which he vaguely learned how to do from camping trips with his parents. As for how he actually lit the fire though? He remembered a warm feeling coursing through him during his fall, and an actual fire that somehow didn't burn him that appeared on his forehead shortly before he fainted. The fire on his forehead had only appeared after he thought of wanting to live. Well, since he needed the fire to cook food in order to live, couldn't he focus on that to make it appear?

A few moments of concentration later, his forefinger that was hovering over the pile of wood sparked a tiny orange ember. He stared at it in wonder. It didn't hurt him at all. If anything, it was comforting. Possibly because it wasn't very hot though, the wood didn't catch fire. Maybe if he concentrated harder, it would become hotter? He did just that and felt the ember get a little bigger and warmer, but never hot. And then he felt something _much_ hotter that _wasn't_ the Flame on his finger. He opened his eyes to see the flickering fire that was feeding on the dry material and immediately pulled his hand away from it.

He learned that there was a very big difference between the fire he could make himself and actual fire. The more he lit up his Flames, the easier it got to do so, and eventually, he could do it almost as easily as breathing. Focusing them to one part of his body not only sent Flames to that area, but also enhanced his strength. Experimentation taught him that he could cook meat directly with his Flames instead of needing to build a campfire.

Foraging for edible plants was easy. He'd just walk around among the vegetation and hover his hand over a particular plant. If it was edible, a soft and soothing thrumming could be felt in the back of his mind. If it wasn't, a warning ping was felt instead. He didn't know that it was actually his Hyper Intuition, but he always trusted it before anything else. No matter how innocent something looked, if this feeling was telling him to get away, he wasn't going anywhere near it. It saved his life more than a few times from hidden snakes.

A lot of experimentation with food and cooking taught him which plants tasted better when cooked, how to best cook each kind of meat, which plants paired best with which meat, etc.

Water was easily obtained from a clean river stream less than a mile from the den. He could take a refreshing drink or take a cold bath in the flowing water. It was a rather safe part of the river, too, as it was a little too small for dangerous creatures like crocodiles or hippos. Crocodiles were obviously dangerous, but hippos were not something he feared until he saw a crocodile nearly get snapped in half by one further down the river.

He wanted to help his new family for taking care of him, but he wouldn't hunt for them. Instead, he put the trusty feeling in his head and his special fire to good use. Attacks from other prides weren't very surprising, and full grown male lions would often try to kill the cubs to take over the rest of the family. Until Tsuna got old enough to actually fight, an almost headache-inducing feeling warned him of incoming attacks. He'd warn the rest of the pride and hide the cubs. When he did get old enough to fight, at around 10 years old, he'd ward them off with Sky embers and then use Flame-enhanced punches or kicks if they didn't heed his warning.

The human child gained a lot of respect from his feline family this way.

Communication had been an issue at first. He couldn't understand their growls and they couldn't understand Japanese. Neither could they speak the other's language. After careful listening and a lot of time, however, both parties learned to basically understand each other. With the help of Hyper Intuition, Tsuna learned to differentiate between certain growls and understand what some of them basically meant. "Food," "danger," and "play" were basic ones. As a human, his vocal chords were not meant to make growling sounds like a lion. Even if he tried, whatever came out sounded absolutely nothing like it. It was like the difference between Chinese and English. Instead, he kept speaking in the limited Japanese he knew, and his family learned to understand him in a way similar to how he understood them.

As far as he knew, this would be the family that he would live with from now on, so he treated them accordingly. He called the leader of the family his dad, and the lioness that carried him to the den his mom. He named the first lion cub he met "Natsu." All of the other adult members were referred to as his aunts and uncles. He treated Natsu and every other cub like they were his little siblings and played with them often.

Through the years, for whatever reason, Natsu... basically never grew up. Even after 10 years, he'd remained a tiny cub, but the fluffy-haired boy attributed this to the fact that Natsu now had a constant warm orange fire around his neck and on his tail, just like his own Flames. Perhaps it was a result of him hanging around the Sky 24/7? When the embers first started showing, the entire pride looked shocked, and for good reason. Didn't only humans have Dying Will Flames?! But after gaining the harmonizing fire, the whole family seemed to relax just little bit more than usual when they were in his presence.

Life continued on without being too eventful for a long, long time. Until a tiny figure in black showed up and spoke to the young boy.

"Ciaossu."

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 **A/N: HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY TO LittleSkyCompass! This is a late present for you! Follow her, or at least check out her stories, on both here and on the Reborn! community in Amino (under the username FanaticalFan). Yeah, this chapter only came out as soon as it did because of her birthday. Once again, I'm not sure when the next update will be, but it will definitely be before the end of the year.**

 **I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! Tsuna is such a smart and resourceful kid. Any kind of constructive criticism is very much so welcome!**

 _Uploaded: 3/1/2019_


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